Thomas Cromwell

by Diarmaid MacCulloch

  3. Depositions of Christopher Chaitour made in further investigations of Tunstall, c. 16 December 1539, SP 1/155 ff. 154v, 157rv, LP 14 ii no. 750[i and ii]. Chaitour recorded that he heard these stories, some of them from servants of Southampton and Browne, on the progress at Woodstock, which dates them to 24–29 August 1539.

  4. SP 1/155 ff. 156r, 157v, LP 14 ii no. 750[i and ii].

  5. See Bonner’s letter to the King, in fact addressed to Cromwell, 1 October [1539], BL MS Cotton Caligula E/IV f. 4, LP 14 ii no. 270; see also the thorough round-up of leading members of Cromwell’s household to be given compliments in Bonner to Thomas Wriothesley, 12 October [1539], SP 1/154 f. 14, LP 14 ii no. 318. For insightful discussion of Bonner’s extraordinary religious turn, see A. Ryrie, The Gospel and Henry VIII: evangelicals in the early English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003), 82–4, 216–18.

  6. Nicholas Wotton to [Henry VIII], 11 August 1539, BL MS Cotton Vitellius B/XXI f. 203, LP 14 ii no. 33.

  7. Quotations (my translations) from the Saxon ambassadors’ reports, McEntegart, Henry VIII, the League of Schmalkalden and the English Reformation, 180–81: ‘Jdoch aber es bisherkeine execution erfolget Ehr achtet es auch genzlich darfur do es die Zeit nicht aussgangen es wurde nun nicht mehr geschen’; ‘es were etzliche der selbige sindt der Zeit auss dem geheimsten rath aussgeschlossen und abgesundert’.

  8. A good overview, and remarkably fair-minded to Cromwell, is Knowles, Religious Orders in England III, 376–82.

  9. Richard Whiting Abbot of Glastonbury to Cromwell, 9 September [1535], SP 1/96 f. 106, LP 9 no. 313. The letter shows that Whiting had prudently refrained from sending More his Steward’s fee after he had been sent to the Tower. Subsequent letters from the Abbot to Cromwell are not as easy to date to precise years as LP might suggest.

  10. William Popley to Lord Lisle, 30 June [1539], SP 3/13 f. 63, Lisle Letters 5 no. 1461; William Lord Stourton to Lady Lisle, 29 June [1539], SP 3/13 f. 173, Lisle Letters 5 no. 1460b.

  11. Richard Leighton to Cromwell, 16 September [1539], SP 1/153 f. 102, LP 14 ii no. 185.

  12. Richard Munslow Abbot of Winchcombe to Cromwell, 17 August [1539], SP 1/153 f. 29, LP 14 ii no. 58; Richard Tracey to Cromwell, 24 August [1539], SP 1/153 f. 46, LP 14 ii no. 79.

  13. Remembrance, BL MS Cotton Titus B/I f. 443, LP 14 ii no. 548; see also Smith, 83.

  14. Petition of Evesham to Cromwell, ?summer 1539, SP 1/139 ff. 114v–115r, LP 13 ii no. 866. LP puzzlingly dated this as between 18 and 19 November 1538, but it is far more plausibly of summer 1539: the list of godly purposes is reminiscent of the Bishoprics Act of that summer, and also speaks of being near Warwickshire where there is no monastery standing: Coombe was dissolved in January 1539, Kenilworth on 14 April 1539, Polesworth nunnery in January 1539 and Nuneaton nunnery in November 1539. Evesham itself was dissolved on 30 January 1540.

  15. Robert Southwell and seven other commissioners to [Cromwell], 4 January 1540, BL MS Cotton Cleopatra E/IV f. 307, LP 15 no. 19.

  16. Deposition of Christopher Chaitour about the words of ‘one Craye’, c. 16 December 1539, SP 1/155 f. 157v, LP 14 ii no. 750[ii] ‘it was a saying that Peterborough should be a college, but now it shall be clearly taken away.’ For the gift, LP 16 no. 380, 179.

  17. LP 16 no. 380, 179. The Abbot of Waltham was also one of the select elite group (and the only abbot) to give Edward a present that New Year: BL MS Royal appendix 89 f. 41, LP 14 i no. 5. For further discussion of the cathedral schemes, see N. Orme, The History of England’s Cathedrals (Exeter, 2017), 101–7.

  18. Dymond (ed.), The Register of Thetford Priory II, 735–6: two drafts of Prior Burden’s letter to the Dowager Duchess, following her earlier letter of 16 July: these letters from the content can only be of 1539.

  19. See the evidence of continuing uncertainty about the future of the priory in the will of ex-Prior Burden, made in July 1540: Norfolk and Norwich Record Office, NCC Reg. Anmer f. 530. The grant was on 9 July 1540, with a Crown rent reserved, and in exchange for lands in Oxfordshire, LP 15 no. 942[43].

  20. The most recent attempt to elucidate this tangled story is N. Clark, ‘The gendering of dynastic memory: burial choices of the Howards, 1485–1559’, JEH 68 (2017), 747–65, which has not solved quite all the problems. I am dubious about the suggestion of a move of the tombs to Kenninghall presented in P. Lindley, ‘Materiality, movement and the historical moment’, in Lindley (ed.), The Howards and the Tudors: studies in science and heritage (Stamford, 2015), 43–75. The statement repeated in ODNB that the Duchess died in May 1545 and was at first buried at Thetford seems mistaken: see G. Leveson-Gower, ‘The Howards of Effingham’, Surrey Archaeological Collections 9 (1888), 395–436, at 397–8.

  21. On what follows, the best summary account is still Scarisbrick, Henry VIII, 368–83.

  22. Depositions of Cray, SP 1/155 f. 162v, LP 14 ii no. 750[2].

  23. T. C. String, ‘A neglected Henrician decorative ceiling’, Antiquaries Journal 76 (1996), 139–51.

  24. See the examples of Tunstall’s marriage drafts in LP 14 ii no. 733.

  25. For the depositions, already frequently cited, see SP 1/155 ff. 153–66, LP 14 ii no. 750; for Parson Tunstall’s arrest, and the search of his chamber in the Bishop’s Palace at Auckland, John Uvedale to Cromwell, 27 December [1539], SP 1/155 f. 147, LP 14 ii no. 748. John Tunstall was parson of Tanfield in 1535, VE 5, 246, and probably corresponds to Cuthbert’s brother John recorded in the family genealogy, C. B. Norcliffe (ed.), The Visitation of Yorkshire in the years 1563 and 1564, made by William Flower . . . (Harleian Society 16, 1881), 327.

  26. There is an excellent summary account of this initiative in Edwards, Mary I, 61–2.

  27. Marillac to Montmorency, 27 December [1539], Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance, 148, LP 14 ii no. 744.

  28. Gregory Cromwell to Cromwell, 1 December 1539, SP 1/155 f. 75, LP 14 ii no. 622.

  29. Earl of Southampton and Nicholas Wotton to Henry VIII, 13 December [1539], SP 1/155 f. 111v, LP 14 ii no. 677.

  30. Cranmer to Cromwell, 29 December [1539], SP 1/156 f. 2, LP 14 ii no. 752; Cromwell’s accounts, LP 14 ii no. 782, at 344.

  31. Deposition of Sir Anthony Browne, LP 15 no. 850[7], and what follows is from Southampton’s own deposition, LP 15 no. 850[5]. The extensive depositions around the Cleves marriage debacle have ended up among the Cecil Papers at Hatfield (see [Hatfield House] Calendar of the manuscripts . . . preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire (24 vols., Historical Manuscripts Commission, series 9, 1883–1976), 1 nos. 61, 66–7). There are extremely accurate contemporary notarial transcriptions of those by the Registrar of York Diocese, William Glossop, in Borthwick Institute, York: Abp. Reg. 28 [Register of Archbishop Edward Lee], ff. 141Av–150r, with the depositions themselves beginning at f. 144v. Further depositions involving the King himself are to be found in BL MS Cotton Otho C/X ff. 241–2, LP 15 no. 822[2, 3], and BL MS Cotton Titus B/I f. 418, LP 15 no. 822[1].

  32. Hume (trans. and ed.), The Chronicle of King Henry VIII, 91.

  33. Cromwell to Henry VIII, July 1540, Merriman 2 no. 349, at 268–73, LP 15 no. 823.

  34. Merriman 1, 279: ‘er siehe unser maynunge den glauben betreffen aber wie die weldt iczt stehet wesz sich sin her der konnig halte desz wolle er sich auch halten und solte er darumb sterben . . .’ (my translation).

  35. Here I concur with the analysis of McEntegart, Henry VIII, the League of Schmalkalden and the English Reformation, 190–91.

  36. It is infuriating that Statutes of the Realm did not print the text of Cromwell’s attainder. G. Burnet, The History of the Reformation . . . (2 vols., London, 1679, Wing B5797), 1 ii 187–92, first put it into print, and subsequent editions still provide the most convenient way of seeing the text. All my subsequent citations of the Act of Attainder are from Burnet. This remark is said to have been made ‘at the parish of St Martin in the Fields’, which is likely to make its setting his
lodgings in St James’s Palace.

  37. William Barlow Bishop of St David’s to Cromwell, 31 August [1539], SP 1/153 f. 58, LP 14 ii no. 107, about a prebend in the cathedral; Shaxton had likewise collated Barnes to the Prebend of Netherbury in Salisbury Cathedral on 18 October 1538. Barnes was paid money owing for his embassy this same February: royal accounts, LP 16 no. 380, 182. Redworth, In Defence of the Church Catholic, 106–16, provides a generally accurate account of the Gardiner/Barnes clashes, though he makes an unnecessary effort to detach them from the political crisis.

  38. Ostensibly Gregory had asked for the information, but its theological detail seems best suited to his father’s interest. Interestingly, Dowes made two copies of the report to Gregory in his own hand, 29 March [1540], SP 1/158 ff. 95–6, and BL MS Cotton Cleopatra E/V ff. 405–6, LP 15 no. 414[1, 2]. That alone suggests that two readers are in mind.

  39. McEntegart, Henry VIII, the League of Schmalkalden and the English Reformation, 192–3: ‘er sei von seinen gelerten sovil, das die unsern in denen puncten die priesteree, die communion sub utraque specie und die privatmessen belangend ze weit gangen.’

  40. Sir John Wallop to Lord Lisle, 31 March 1540, SP 3/8 f. 49, Lisle Letters 6 no. 1663, with useful editorial comment there on dating the dinner party in March.

  41. The Act of Attainder misdates this incident to 30 Henry VIII, which would have been 31 March 1539, when Barnes was in high favour and a royal ambassador, not in prison. It is pinned to Austin Friars by the Act’s specification that it took place in the parish of St Peter-le-Poer.

  42. Marillac to Montmorency, 10 April [1540], Ribier (ed.), Lettres et mémoires d’estat, 1, 513, LP 15 no. 486.

  43. On what follows in this paragraph, see MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, 267–8.

  44. Lehmberg, Later Parliaments of Henry VIII, 66.

  45. Ibid., 92–3.

  46. BL MS Cotton Titus B/I ff. 109–17, LP 14 i no. 869, well discussed in G. R. Elton, ‘Taxation for war and peace in early-Tudor England’, in Elton, Studies 3, 216–33, at 224–8, and Sowerby, Renaissance and Reform, 140–41; they both rightly redate the text from 1539 to 1540.

  47. Herbert, Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth, 456; on Fuller and Christ Church Aldgate, see above, this page.

  48. Elton, Reform and Renewal, 96.

  49. Lehmberg, Later Parliaments of Henry VIII, 97–9.

  50. LP 15 no. 613[12] (24 April 1540).

  51. SP 1/158 f. 122, LP 15 no. 437. Detailed discussion by Elton, Tudor Revolution in Government, 312–15, confirms the date of this measure as of April 1540, but curiously ignores the explicitly Parliamentary provisions of the warrant in favour of the bureaucratic implications, providing secretarial assistance separately for King and Lord Privy Seal. This sidesteps the realities of political crisis at the time of the creation.

  52. For the creation and grant, see LP 15 nos. 611[37, 38]. For the ceremonies, see royal payments to the heralds, LP 16 no. 380, 186. For comment on the importance of the Lord Great Chamberlain, see Starkey, ‘Intimacy and innovation’, 115n.

  53. The sale is revealed in the Act of Parliament setting up the Honour of Hampton Court, 31 Henry VIII c. 55, not printed in Statutes of the Realm but summarized in LP 15 no. 498[36], 213–14. It is specified that the estates had come to the King by purchase from Cromwell, not by attainder. Henry subsequently demolished Mortlake parish church as being too near the house and rebuilt it elsewhere (an action not quite as drastic as his sacrilegious action at Nonsuch): Colvin (ed.), History of the King’s Works 4, 169–70. The transaction may already have been discussed in autumn 1539, to judge by a note in a remembrance of Cromwell’s of late October 1539, BL MS Cotton Titus B/I f. 446, LP 14 ii no. 427: ‘For mine exchange, and to procure a house to dwell in’.

  54. The alienation licence for the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk on 15 January 1539 is LP 14 i no. 191[17], and the sale came the following day, recorded in BL MS Harley Charters 47 A. 50, LP 14 i no. 71.

  55. Colvin (ed.), History of the King’s Works 4, 179–80. The Honour was set up by an Act of the 1539 Parliament: 31 Henry VIII, cap. 5: Statutes of the Realm 3, 721–4.

  56. There is an account in BL MS Harley 69 f. 18, LP 15 no. 617.

  57. For a summary account of the increasing political, military and financial failure, Ellis, ‘Thomas Cromwell and Ireland, 1532–1540’, 515–16, and on the forward campaign in the Church, Murray, Enforcing the English Reformation in Ireland, 118–24.

  58. Bradshaw, Irish Constitutional Revolution, 177–85. On the other summonses, see John Allen, James Earl of Ormond, Archbishop Browne, William Brabazon and Robert Cowley to Cromwell, 30 April [1540], SP 60/9 f. 44, LP 15 no. 44, and Earl of Ormond to Cromwell, 1 May [1540], SP 60/9 f. 46, LP 15 no. 620.

  59. Archbishop of Dublin to Cromwell, 19 May [1540], SP 60/9 f. 61, LP 15 no. 692.

  60. Council of England to Sir William Brereton, the Archbishop of Dublin and John Allen, 12 June 1540, SP 60/9 f. 69, LP 15 no. 775.

  61. Where not otherwise referenced, the following paragraphs follow MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, 269, drawing heavily on the Marillac correspondence, and for a vivid and exhaustive account of the Calais events, see Lisle Letters 5, 53–158.

  62. Marillac to Constable Montmorency, 1 June 1540, Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance, 187–9, LP 15 no. 737.

  63. Ralph Sadler to Cromwell, c. 1 June 1540, SP 1/160 f. 87, LP 15 no. 719.

  64. Brigden, London and the Reformation, 313.

  65. Cromwell to Sir George Lawson, 4 June 1540, SP 1/160 f. 116, LP 15 no. 746: an unsigned file copy.

  66. Bodl. MS Jesus College 74 f. 299r: ‘the Earl of Essex (who made this match) was sent to the Tower because he would not consent to the Divorce.’

  67. Deposition of Cromwell to Henry VIII, 12 June 1540, BL MS Cotton Titus B/I f. 273, LP 15 no. 776 (in which LP misidentifies the Admiral as Russell; it was Southampton); deposition of Sir Thomas Wriothesley, LP 15 no. 850[11].

  68. For examples of this closeness, see Bonner to Wriothesley, 22 April [1539], SP 1/150 f. 165, LP 14 i no. 831; 12 October [1539], SP 1/154 f. 14, LP 14 ii no. 318.

  69. P. Janelle, ‘An unpublished poem on Bishop Stephen Gardiner’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 6 (1928–9), 12–25, 89–96, 167–74, quotation at 22. Janelle demonstrates that it was written by William Palmer, one of the first Gentlemen Pensioners in 1539, who took part in the reception for Anne of Cleves; he wrote in the reign of Edward VI.

  70. Marillac to Montmorency, 23 June 1540, Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance, 193–5, LP 15 no. 804.

  71. The draft Council letter of 10 June is SP 1/160 ff. 140–43, LP 15 no. 765.

  72. Richard Pate to the Privy Council, 16 June 1540, SP 1/160 f. 155, LP 15 no. 794. For his further bile against Cromwell in letters home of 27 June, see Pate to Henry VIII, SP 1/160 f. 165, LP 15 no. 811; Pate to the Duke of Norfolk, SP 1/160 f. 167, LP 15 no. 812.

  73. King of France to Marillac, 15 June 1540, Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance, 191–2, LP 15 no. 785.

  74. Sadler’s very neat copy is BL MS Harley 288 ff. 47–8, LP 15 no. 792, and there is a further copy now much mutilated at BL MS Cotton Caligula E/IV ff. 42–3, LP 15 no. 792[2]; they must be a few days later than the date of 16 June given them in LP. See Henry VIII’s reply to Sir John Wallop, 22 June 1540, SP 1/160 f. 161, LP 15 no. 801, in which he comments on having seen this material.

  75. Henry VIII to Sir John Wallop, 22 June 1540, SP 1/160 f. 161, LP 15 no. 801, and see Wallop’s follow-up to the King in reply, 5 July 1540, SP 1/161 f. 25, LP 15 no. 842. On the German letters, Marillac to Montmorency, 23 June 1540, Kaulek (ed.), Correspondance, 194, LP 15 no. 804.

  76. Woking: Surrey History Centre, Loseley MSS, LM 59/150. I am very grateful to Steven Gunn for sharing his notes on the inventory with me.

  77. Cromwell to Henry VIII, 5 February [1539], BL MS Cotton Titus B/I f. 263, LP 14 i no.
227.

  78. A representative example is Thomas Lord De La Warr to Cromwell, 18 November [1539], SP 1/154 f. 146, LP 14 ii no. 455.

  79. Herbert, Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth, 457, ‘from an original’, LP 15 no. 770. Given the other unique material surviving only in Thomas Master’s notes for Herbert in Bodl. MS Jesus 74, there is no good reason to doubt the authenticity of this letter. I date it to 12 June, since it is after a Council meeting ‘yesterday’, yet it seems implausible that Cranmer attended the tumultuous meeting of 10 June. If he did, then the date should be 11 June as LP tentatively suggests.

  80. Foxe 1563, 1547. The story does of course sound like the denouement of the Prebendaries’ Plot in 1543 (see MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, 319–21), but it is likely not to be a doublet; quite apart from its exceptionally racy presentation, Foxe may have felt it would detract from the drama of his fuller account of the 1543 events, and hence dropped it in later editions than 1563. It is interesting to attempt to match the circumstantial detail of the narrative to the layout of Whitehall (cf. Thurley, Houses of Power, 134–5). Cranmer probably came in via the watergate from Lambeth and relied on his status to get access to the privy stair.

  81. Lords Journals 1, 144–6; Lehmberg, Later Parliaments of Henry VIII, 107–9; MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, 271–2.

  82. Herbert, Life and Raigne of King Henry the Eighth, 458. For discussion of the Act and its passage, see Lehmberg, Later Parliaments of Henry VIII, 107–12.

  83. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer, 271–4.

  84. The letter of 12 July 1540 in which Suffolk, Southampton and Wriothesley reported their negotiations with Anne to Henry VIII, BL MS Cotton Otho C/X ff. 254–5, LP 15 no. 874, suggests a lady who was rapidly learning how to get the best out of a set of men squirming with embarrassment at their task.

  85. BL MS Cotton Otho C/X f. 250v, LP 15 no. 824.